Nation briefs

Sunday

Dec 25, 2011 at 12:01 AM

Across The Nation

RICHMOND, Va.

Several states and U.S. territories are weighing in on a lawsuit over proposed graphic cigarette warning labels that include a sewn-up corpse of a smoker and a picture of diseased lungs, saying the federal government should be allowed to require the labels for the "lethal and addictive" products.

The 24 attorneys general filed a friend of the court brief Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington in support of the Food and Drug Administration's challenge of a lower court ruling in the case.

WASHINGTON

With tea party-backed first-termers calling the shots, House Republicans snatched political defeat from the jaws of victory in a year-end showdown over Social Security payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits.

By spurning a deal that Senate Republicans had embraced, for a two-month extension of tax cuts for 160 million Americans and jobless benefits for millions more, the House wing of the party isolated itself politically and by some calculations improved President Barack Obama's re-election prospects.

Friday brought a humbling surrender, the only realistic alternative despite grumbling from scattered holdouts and Newt Gingrich, courting tea party support in the race for the presidential nomination.

NEW YORK

Occupy Wall Street may still be working to shake the notion it represents a passing outburst of rage, but some establishment institutions have already decided the movement's artifacts are worthy of historic preservation.

More than a half-dozen major museums and organizations from the Smithsonian Institution to the New-York Historical Society have been avidly collecting materials produced by the Occupy movement.

Staffers have been sent to occupied parks to rummage for buttons, signs, posters and documents. Websites and tweets have been archived for digital eternity. And museums have approached individual protesters directly to obtain posters and other ephemera.

WASHINGTON

Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich's campaign attacked Virginia's GOP primary election system Saturday for keeping him off the state's March 6 Super Tuesday ballot. It was a significant setback for a candidate who has surged in popularity but struggled to organize his campaign.

The state party said Gingrich, who lives in Virginia, had failed to submit the required 10,000 signatures to appear on the ballot. Texas Gov. Rick Perry also failed to qualify, the state GOP said.

The Gingrich campaign responded that "only a failed system" would disqualify Gingrich and other candidates. It said Gingrich would pursue an aggressive write-in campaign, although state law prohibits write-ins on primary ballots.

WASHINGTON

On Jan. 21, 1997, one of the most memorable days in congressional history, Newt Gingrich became the first House speaker to be reprimanded by his colleagues for ethical misconduct.

The 395-28 vote, to reprimand him for bringing discredit on the House for failing to ensure his use of tax-exempt groups was legal, was historic by itself. But Gingrich's peers didn't stop there. They fined him $300,000 for misleading the House Ethics Committee and causing it to extend a costly investigation.

Compiled from wire reports

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